This morning I was scrolling through instagram and came across a book shook with Jameela Jamil. She was discussing how the novel “Hunger” by Roxane Gay was so incredibly empowering and healing for her. How she shared similar experiences and reading a novel that was so truthful about those experiences helped her move past her own trauma.
I had to pause the video to ponder it. I am a very strong believer in the fact that books can be life transforming. But where did I get that idea. When did it start. I’ve read voraciously my entire life, consuming story after story. Narrative after narrative. But when did I start realizing how transforming they could be?
Maybe a part of me always knew, but I can pinpoint it to about 8 months after my son was born. I was struggling with severe Postpartum depression, that I had finally admitted, to myself, to my husband, to my doctor.
I’m finding that Postpartum depression almost seems to be the norm, and yet, it is still something that we don’t automatically pay enough attention to. You have one appointment a month after the baby is born to check on the Mom. But there should be appointments when the mom goes back to work, appointments with psychologists not gynos. There should be appointments with psychologists from the beginning, not to shame the mothers, but to offer a support system, to check in on them, look for the signs.
Being a new mother is exhausting which also makes it isolating. We are so tired, so run down by caring for another person suddenly that we isolate ourselves. There’s no energy to paste on a smile, pretend that we aren’t thinking our child is better off without us. Laugh rather than cry.
My doctor sent me to a therapist. Which in theory is a good idea. Luckily at the time my insurance covered it, but it was also a time where I couldn’t really afford to take the two hours off every week to drive to the therapist, talk to her for an hour and then drive back to work. I spent the entirety of the 3 visits (yes I quit after 3) stressed to the max and annoyed as her main suggestion was that I should take a couple weeks off work.
I decided that I would handle it on my own as obviously therapy wasn’t doing me any favors (I am not against therapy, it didn’t work for me in that instance, however it works wonders for many people, so please if you think you should see a therapist or your doctor thinks you should, go see the therapist).
Handling it “on my own” meant I turned to books. I asked my incredible mommy group for some suggestions on books regarding Postpartum depression. I was given several suggestions and I tried two of them, though in reality, I got lucky, there was only one book I NEEDED to read. And I did.
Brooke Shields “Down Came the Rain”, is the hardest book I have ever read. I almost quit. I put the book down for over a week and walked away, I had to force myself to pick it back up. Some small voice in me said I needed to read the book, I needed to relive the pain, anxiety and trauma, my heart and my body had been through.
Brooke is so intensely honest in her novel, she saw me. She saw the innermost feelings that I was pushing down and refusing to feel. The feelings I was trying to hide from everyone around me, but was constantly thinking.
Brooke and I had very different pregnancy journeys and very different postpartum journeys. I was lucky, I didn’t have as bad of depression as Brooke did, I was able to have an emotional connection to my son from the beginning. I think seeing someone have it worse than me helped put it in perspective too. Though a lot of her feelings resonated so completely with me, it was like I was writing not her, I saw myself. I saw that I was not alone, in such a real and tangible sense.
I saw hope, I saw that Brooke survived, she made it through, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I would smile again. I would be okay.
I have since learned that any period of personal growth is intensely painful, though this was my first real experience with that. Brooke’s words took me back into the OR, they took me back into the terror, into the tears that hadn’t stopped falling from the moment they said the words “I think we need to do a c-section” to the moment my son was placed in my arms in a recovery room. They took me back to the pain and anguish of not being able to get out of bed until the next day. To not being able to force the nurse running my son's postpartum tests to hand him to me when I was finally stitched up and wheeled into the recovery room he was in with his dad.
Brooke was honest and vulnerable and I am eternally grateful to her for reliving that trauma and being so open for the rest of us. Brooke showed me that I was not alone, that the things I was feeling, they weren’t just something that “other women have too”. That those exact painful thoughts and emotions had been experienced by someone, that she had survived. It was like having an older sister or a friend who had, had the exact experience and was going through it with you.
Books can change your life if you let them, they can help you heal, they can help you survive. You just have to take the first step, find the book. And then whatever you do, don’t let yourself walk away from it completely, walk away if you need, but come back to it. Let it help you acknowledge what you’ve gone through, let it help you move on.
“Down Came the Rain My Journey Through Postpartum Depression” by Brooke Shieldshttps://www.google.com/books/edition/Down_Came_the_Rain/XTKZAAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
If you're insterested in Jameela Jamil's video I watched this morning please see the link below:
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CD1WN8KHd_g/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
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